Sorrow of Love
by sparrow.marrow
Summary: She could not blame him for wanting a normal life, a life without a daily monster, a life with no magic, no sacrifices, no heartbreaking choices, no darkness.


This is just a little bit of angsty fluff set right before Mamoru leaves for America in Sailor Stars. Read. Review. Judge. Whatever makes you happy?

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Sorrow of Love  
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Usagi opened her eyes and then closed them again. Nestling her body deeper into the covers she silently willed herself to go back to sleep. _No_. Usagi opened her eyes. Above her, the ceiling fan turned lazily on its motor casting strange shadows on the ceiling.

Stillness. Silence - except for the deep even breaths coming from the man lying next to her.

Serenity. Peace - except for the rapid beating burning in her heart. Usagi shut her eyes and rolled over onto her side, pulling most of the blankets along with her. Her limbs felt tight and heavy, lead weights, dead weight.

_No_. Usagi opened her eyes. Dim lights from the city were shining weakly through the blinds, shedding horizontal rays of light and gloom across the bedding.

The diffused red light from the alarm clock on the nightstand read 3:30.

Usagi sat up, frustrated and restless. She drew her legs towards her chest, resting her chin on her knees, and shut her eyes.

_No_. She opened her eyes. Deep shadows, inky darkness, pooled in the corners of the room where the muted nighttime light from the windows could not reach.

Usagi shivered, lay back down and then sat back up. A murmur of irritation sounded beside her.

Cringing slightly Usagi turned to her lover and absently brushed a piece of ebony hair from his forehead.

Still asleep.

She lay back down. Snuggling up to him she pushed her face up to his so that there breath mingled. His breath was hot on her cheek.

Reaching out her hand she traced the contours of his face, her fingers hovering over skin, the straight long line of his nose, the black crescent curve of his eyelashes, strong jaw lightly covered in rough stubble, the seashell of ear, the bend of shoulder, sweep of brow.

His cheeks were rosy from the warmth of the room, from her body pressed up against his. He murmured again, this time in contentment as she let her fingertips skim over the soft skin, the arc and bow of his lips.

She had his outline memorized, engrained in her memory, burned in her heart over a millennia of love and sacrifice. She could recreate every part of him in her mind, build him up out of nothing. She knew his heart, knew the rhythm of its beat. She knew his weakness and his darkness. She knew his love. He was her shield and protector. He was justice, she was love.

_He was leaving._

He had told her today at the bridge in the park. And he had made it seem so casual. He would just be gone for a year, he would study in America, he would call often, and she would write him everyday. This was a good opportunity for him. His thesis had been accepted! He would study medicine and she would finish high school. He would keep in contact, he would still love her, he would still be there to rescue her.

She had listened to him talk, listened to him go on and on about the school in America, and his ideas about research, and how much his English would improve, and how maybe she could come and visit him on her summer vacation. She had listened, tried to smile.

_Yes, things would be fine here Mamo-chan. No, she didn't think that anything bad would happen while he was gone (something bad always happened). Yes, she knew he would be just a phone call away (such a long way away). Yes, the girls would take care of her like always (and she would take care of them like always). Yes, she would miss him (with every breathe). Yes, of course she would always love him (silly selfish man to ask such a question after a thousand years)._

He had taken her back to his apartment then, after winning her a stuffed animal from the machine in the arcade and buying her an ice cream cone… as if she were still a child he could placate, as if she had not died for him, as if he had not died for her, as if she wasn't a reincarnated princess, as if he wasn't her prince.

She had sat on the couch in his spartan apartment, her legs tucked up under her. She had studied the carpet, trying to pick out the shining specks of leftover bits of broken mirror that had burrowed themselves into the rug. It had become a sort of game over the last month for her, a sort of distraction from the far away look in his eyes. A change from the naked longing that was reflected in his expression, the guilt that showed through in his attentiveness. She hadn't found any bits of glass. He must have had the cleaners come again. _Nehellenia. _

Usagi shivered in the warm bed, her face inches away from Mamoru's. She had come so close to losing him… again. She would never again look in a mirror the same way. While she had stared at the carpet, he had gone to the kitchen to make them something to eat. She had heard him banging around in the kitchen; she had felt the blood beginning to pound in her ears.

She had wanted to rage, to hit him, to hurt him, to yell and scream at him for leaving her. To tell him that of course something bad would happen if he left, there was always some new enemy, some new greedy lonely monster, hungry for her power, starving for her light.

Instead of raging, instead of crying she had ripped her gaze away from the carpet and smiled when he came out of the kitchen with a tray of steaming noodle. She could not blame him for wanting a normal life, a life without a daily monster, a life with _no _magic, _no_ sacrifices, _no_ heartbreaking choices, _no_ darkness.

They had eaten in silence and then he had come to her and he had made love to her, frantically at first, their clothes haphazardly strewn across the living room in their frenzied attempt to be near one another, to be as close as possible, skin and against skin.

Later, after they had stumbled into the bedroom he had made lover to her again, this time slower, gently, softly. He had covered her body in a thousand kissed and whispered her name into her hair. They both had wept and she had bitten her tongue and refused to ask him why, if it hurt so much, he had to go at all.

_He was leaving._

Usagi got out of bed, finally abandoning the idea of sleep along with the warmth of her lover, her heart still pounding erratically, a shining silver pain still burning in her chest.

Moving silently, she quickly picked up her scattered clothes off the living room floor. She went over to the closet and pulled out Mamoru's old green blazer (hideous, familiar, much loved thing). She put it on. The green fabric nearly fell to her knees and the sleeves were so long that she had to push them back to open the door. She left the apartment, trudging down the empty hallway, passing the doors of sleeping neighbors. It was quiet, that illusive early morning quiet that only exists at the cusp of day and night.

She was outside. It was chilly in the pre-dawn. She pulled up the collar of Mamoru's blazer to keep the wind off her face. It smelled of him.

She began to walk, her sneakers silent on the city street, the skirt of her school uniform rippling in the light breeze. She was heading up the hill towards the park, where she and Mamoru had talked earlier.

He was leaving. The streetlamps made pools of sleepy amber light on the cracked pavement. She kept her head down plodding onward, her thoughts a muddle. She had been having dreams. Dreams that she could not bear to tell him. Dreams of revolution and of death. Red _skies, ruby eyes, blood, blood, blood, chaos, death, laughter, apocalypse._ She knew Rei had been having the dreams too, even though the fiery priestess had not told anyone else about them. Usagi could tell. She knew.

Usagi was in the park now. The place was so different in the darkness, no children, no vendors, no happy couples, no giggling groups of teenage girls. She stumbled over a loose paving stone and then fell to her knees in the soft grass by the path, her strength abandoning her. Her long hair, unbound from its usual buns, pooled on the grass on either side of her.

She would have cried then, if she had had any tears left, but she was empty of tears, she only felt the burning in her heart.

She was a sixteen year old with the knowledge of centuries. A sixteen year old with power enough to wipe out the galaxy if she choose to unleash it. She could feel the power inside of her; that searing silver brightness that was her heart, it was her constant companion. If she chose, she could end it all right now, she could take away the world. _Tempting._

She looked up at the dark clouded sky, licking her dry lips.

She knew that for the other girls their power was part time. When they were needed they became soldiers. When they were needed they threw themselves in front of the blade that would cut her down, but only when they were needed. They all had separate lives. They all had the ability to not have power, to be at least somewhat normal. Her power burned in her constantly, her _love _burned. Sometimes she could feel the pain of the entire galaxy searing a whole in her chest, amplified by the facets of the crystal that was her essence.

_It was a heavy yoke._ She needed him, Mamoru, Endymion, not to shoulder the burden, but to support her. It was the promise of his love, the wonder of his love that held her together. She could save the world again and again as long as she knew that he would be there in the end to hold her, to soothe the hurt, the burning.

It was a selfish love. Her weakness was also her strength.

_He was leaving._ She did not blame him.

The hours would pass so slowly without him, growing would be so painful without him to hold her. She was only sixteen after all, not a girl, not a woman, not a soldier, not a princess, but somehow a savior and she was scared. And she was also not sure of her ability to face the coming apocalypse, the coming darkness, that horrible echoing laughter she had heard in her nightmares, so completely alone.

She could end it all, stop it before it started. For a careless moment, she let her go her restraint, and let her full power flow through her. The ground around her began to glow pearly pink, then gold, then vivid silver, the grass bent backward, the trees shivered, the air shimmered, the earth trembled, then began to shake as Usagi unbound her heart, and poured her anguish into the land.

At the last possible moment, before the ground cracked and split, before the whole city could fall into the gaping chasm that Usagi could carve into the soft earth, before the people of Tokyo could awake screaming in their beds, before an apocalypse, the girl Usagi (woman, princess, soldier, lover, mother, redeemer) checked herself and saved the world, not from a monstrous enemy, but from her own misery. _No_.

It was hard to love a man. She would not ask him to stay. This time she would make the sacrifice. She would let him go, trusting in their love to bring him home again. She would love him and she would let him go. _Yes._

Drained, resolved, misery spent, she picked herself up off the ground. She wrapped the worn green blazer around her, protection from the chill dark of morning, and started the long walk home.


End file.
